


party with destiny, dance with fate

by rowenabane



Category: Big Bang (Band), GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Cameos, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Fate & Destiny, M/M, Partying, fic writers yall know what's up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-27 02:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20753159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowenabane/pseuds/rowenabane
Summary: Jackson has only the vaguest sense of his purpose but he does know this: someone has to throw a party, and that someone is him.





	party with destiny, dance with fate

**Author's Note:**

> to all the fic writers out there who have ever written a jackson party in their fic, this one is for you! I'm so glad to be able to join this fic fest and shine some love on our favorite party thrower <3 I did try to include some cameos, so be on the lookout for scenes that may seem a bit...familiar...  
thanks so much for being amazing! please enjoy!!!

This feels like a frat party, and three minutes in Jackson realizes he is correct. He is always correct when it comes to these things. There are college students dressed in jeans and sweatpants knocking back shots of vodka in the kitchen, and loud bass music thrumming through the walls. Jackson walks through the crowd and someone claps him on the back, smiling and laughing. They act like a friend, but he doesn’t know them.

He sees a shadow slink across the edge of the room and narrows his eyes. It’s a man, but he doesn’t seem like he belongs.

Jackson opens his mouth to say something and the man looks at him, dark eyes and dark hair and dark suit jacket blending in with the shadows. They make eye contact for a brief second but before Jackson can even process his thoughts they seem to vanish. The man vanishes too, and Jackson does not see him for the rest of the night.

A ghost. The man seems like a ghost.

…

Jackson likes to measure time in units of celebration. He does not say _ something happened yesterday, _ he says _ something happened at the house party where I saw two men get engaged and both of them cry. _

He says _something is happening right now. _

The man on the other side of the room is familiar, but Jackson doesn’t know why. He recognizes, in some way, the broad shoulders and stony face, the black suit and dark hair. It is a memory that didn't die when the last party did, and Jackson frowns. The man is standing across the room and doesn’t look at him, instead drifts through the room like an observer.

“Hey,” Jackson calls out, his mouth dry. Outside, people are laughing and shouting. 

The man turns to him, face stony. He seems surprised that Jackson has addressed him, as if he is unaccustomed to being noticed.

“Yes?” he says slowly, looking Jackson up and down as if he is a threat. “What do you want?”

_ Do you belong here? _ Jackson wants to ask. _ What are you doing here? _

Instead, he asks:

“What’s your name?”

The man smiles, mouth closed, eyes dangerous. “Seunghyun. It’s nice to meet you, Jackson.”

The party ends and Jackson is whisked away before he can ask the man how he knows his name.

…

“Have we met before?” Jackson asks the man standing in the corner of the bar. Smoke is heavy in the air, the lights dim and the chatter easy. The man looks as if he might fit in but there is something closed off in his demeanor, something that speaks of discomfort, nonconformity.

“No,” the man says. 

“I’m Jackson,” he says. He feels he knows the man’s name, feels it slipping off the tip of his tongue like ice on a hot summer day.

The man nods. “I know.”

…

“Seunghyun,” Jackson says. “Your name is Seunghyun.”

The woods around them crackle with life and warmth, the trees strung with lights and the air balmy and warm. Jackson can hear shouting, can smell the warm crackle of a fire and burning sugar. He’s sitting on a blanket at the base of a large tree, frowning at the man standing in front of him.

Seunghyun gives him a wry smile. “You remember.”

“I’m not quite sure why.”

Seunghyun voice is flat. “I see.”

Jackson stares up at him, unsure. He’s never been able to remember a figure or face that follows him from one party to the next. Everything he can recollect is done so in blurs and fragments, and Jackson may remember a place but he never remembers a name.

Jackson shrugs off the strange curiosity settling over his shoulders and offers Seunghyun a marshmallow. The other man looks at it curiously, a suited spectre in the forest, and then shakes his head.

The party ends.

…

Memory is not a friend of Jackson’s. He doesn’t remember many things: being a kid, having a family, having a home.

Maybe that's the hardest part of it all: he doesn't remember his past, can’t predict his future. It’s something he’s come to accept, something he has always known, but it has always made him feel a little disjointed. Sometimes he doesn’t feel he belongs in a place. Sometimes he feels he belongs there too much. Sometimes he doesn’t _ want _to leave.

Jackson can’t name or count all the places he has been: Beijing, Korea, 1920s New York City. He’s been to beaches, to clubs, to far off moons swathed among the stars.

He likes to think that he’s seen it all, but that is not quite true.

...

“I remember you,” Jackson says, swirling a glass of red wine in his hand. He doesn’t say y_ ou seem familiar, _ he doesn’t say _ I think I recognize you _ , he says _ I remember you. _

Seunghyun looks out the window. Tonight’s party is in a fancy apartment penthouse that must be Jackson’s in some way, with large glass windows that look over the sprawling streets and skyscrapers of the city below. The sky is tinged a lighter shade of black from the constant light of the city, the same light that paints Seunghyun’s face in shadows as he looks away from Jackson.

“You do,” he says, and it is not a question.

A woman passes by him and places a gentle hand on Jackson’s shoulder, thanking him for throwing this lovely party and the phrase is so uncannily familiar that Jackson can’t even bear to wave it off. He smiles, strained, and she slinks away. 

“Who are you?” Jackson asks. His hands feel cold, his ribs too tight around his lungs. 

“I’m Seunghyun,” the man says, and that is not the answer Jackson wants to hear. It is too vague, it is not what he is searching for. Not this time. He needs something more than a name, than a face, than a shadow that follows him from world to world, party to party, moment to moment.

“I know that,” Jackson says, and he cannot hide the edge in his voice. “Who _ are _ you?”

“I think what you mean to ask,” Seunghyun says slowly, voice like water tumbling over stones, “is who I am now.”

“Fine,” Jackson says. “Who are you now?”

“A visitor,” Seunghyun says, placing a hand on the large glass windows. He presses on it, hard, as if he is trying to crack it. “A friend of a friend of a friend who just happens to be in the same place as you.”

“That doesn’t explain anything,” Jackson says, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “That doesn’t explain anything at all.”

_ It doesn’t explain why I always see you, _ he wants to say. _ It doesn’t explain why the only faces I can ever recognize are yours and mine, it doesn’t explain why of all the things that shift in my life you are the constant. It doesn’t explain any of that, doesn’t come close. _

Jackson puts his glass down.

“Do you know who these people are?” Seunghyun asks, voice soft and eyes even softer. His image is blurred in the soft apartment lighting, cut in contrast with the night outside the windows. He doesn't seem quite right, for the fabric of this world. Like Jackson, he seems a little displaced.

“Of course,” Jackson says, as if on instinct. They aren’t his words; he doesn’t know these people at all. Maybe he knows a name, maybe has some type of dim awareness of friendship or relation, but everything else is hazy. Jackson is moving through a mist, one that has no end.

"You don't." Seunghyun's eyes pin him.

Jackson is silent.

"What you don't know," Seunghyun says slowly, "is that tonight, in your apartment, someone is falling in love. Someone is furthering their plot, or maybe realizing something they haven't before. You are nothing but a set piece in the background, Jackson. You aren't even part of the story."

His eyes hold immeasurable sadness. Jackson hates it.

"What are you talking about?" Jackson says, but his voice doesn't work like it's supposed to. It has a hush, a fade, that wasn't there before.

"What's your name?"

"Jackson Wang."

"Where are you from?" Seunghyun asks, voice fading.

"I..I'm from..." Jackson frowns. The night presses on the windows outside.

"What's your job? Who's your best friend?"

"I...I don't..."

"Jackson," Seunghyun says, voice insistent. "Who are you?"

"I don't know!" Jackson snaps. His voice is raised above the soft conversational pitch of the room, but no one seems to notice or care. Jackson lowers his voice. "I don't know."

"Let go of me."

Seunghyun's voice is sharp. It is only then that Jackson realizes his fingers are clamped around Seunghyun's wrist, leaving red marks in the slim line of exposed skin beneath his sleeve. Jackson lets go of him, stunned.

Seunghyun ribs at his wrists, stare wary.

"I'm sorry," Jackson says, and he is surprised to find himself stumbling over the words.

"Jackson Wang," Seunghyun says softly, almost reverentially. "Too many universes takes its toll on even the strongest of us."

"What?" Jackson's head rings. He feels like he is fading, like his vision is narrowing, like the world is crashing in on him. The feeling presses on him, the disconcerting pressure of drowning or being blown out into space.

"The party is ending," Seunghyun says. His voice seems far, far away. "See you soon."

"Wait—" Jackson says, but Seunghyun is already walking away, black suit jacket and dark hair receding into the distance. The world is closing in on him and everything is muted, black and gray and night.

Jackson closes his eyes and the world falls away. The party is over.

...

This time, he’s at a ball.

The high ceiling glitters with candles set in glimmering golden chandeliers, the light filling the room. The walls are a creamy white, lined with wooden molding painted a shimmering gold. The marble beneath Jackson’s feet has been polished to a loving shine, and servants in suits drift through the crowd of bejeweled guests to offer refreshments.

Jackson adjusts the mask covering his eyes and brushes past a woman in a full skirt, the layers of silk and lace draping gracefully across the floor. Her partner, a man in an old fashioned suit with fabric tied around his neck, sweeps her into graceful circles. They are both wearing feathered masks, eyes blissfully unaware of his presence.

Jackson weaves through the throng of people, the tinkling notes of music drifting over the chattering crowd. Everyone is beautiful in a wealthy, untroubled way—the women drift in groups, surrounded by clouds of jewels and colored silk. Jackson tugs on the sleeves of his own suit coat, the edges foaming with lace.

“Dance with me,” someone whispers, and Jackson is sure he is hallucinating when a hand rests on his shoulder. He turns to see a man in a wolf mask, grinning slyly at him.

“A fox,” Seunghyun says, grabbing Jackson’s hand in his. He places his other hand on the small of Jackson’s back, whisking him out among the other dancers. “Interesting choice.”

Jackson reaches up to tug the edge of his mask. “I didn't choose.”

Seunghyun shrugs. He doesn’t act like he has thought about the last time they were together, like the penthouse party never happened. They do not speak of it.

His wrist, however, has a thin bruise in the shape of Jackson’s hand.

“So what are you doing here?” Jackson asks, stepping gracefully into the circles of a waltz he didn't realize he had learned. Seunghyun leads, sure and steady, his movements filled with a strange type of grace.

“I think I’m supposed to be some sort of baron,” Seunghyun says. “And you?”

Jackson is silent.

“I see,” Seunghyun says, leading him more into the crowd. They are a respectful distance from two men who are sitting near the wall, one with emeralds stitched onto his sleeves and the other with an uncanny, barely human smile. They are looking at each other as if they are unsure if they are friends or enemies or maybe something more, and Jackson looks away.

“This is boring,” Jackson says. “I don’t think I’m a fan of gaudy events like this.”

Seunghyun shrugs again, the movement fluid as it turns into upraised arms and Seunghyun spinning him around. “What would you prefer?”

There's something sly in the words, something coy. Jackson almost takes the bait but then remembers that Seughyun is still a mystery, an enigma in a wolf mask and a suit, and hesitates.

“I don’t know,” he says. Seunghyun grins.

Sway and dance, step and smile. Too soon the party ends.

…

Jackson can smell salt before he can even see the ocean: he can hear the waves and feel the sand before he is even conscious of the weight of his own body.

He cracks open an eye and sees a small house in the distance, elevated on stilts above where the tide would flood the beach during a storm. The sea is an elevated shade of gray, almost blue where the water meets the sand. There are several people headed up to the beach house and Jackson sits up, rubbing his forehead. He is always like this, after a party—a little confused, waiting for the world to stop spinning and to finally make sense.

His feet are bare and he's wearing a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, a small mercy in the unrelenting sun and heat. A tug in his stomach pulls him towards the beach house, the only building in sight, and he knows that is the place where he is supposed to be.

He trudges up the dunes, sand slipping beneath his feet.

The house is in a state of ordered disarray, and even though the sun is still high in the sky the clocks in the house all say that it is close to 8 pm. People are already milling about, lounging on the couches in various styles of swimwear and casual clothing. Somewhere in the house a lively game of beer pong has started, and Jackson can hear ping pong balls bouncing on the floor.

"Jackson!"

He turns to see a girl in a bright neon yellow swimsuit, smiling at him. "Everyone's so excited to see you!" she says, bubbly and bright. "Everyone talked about your last party for _ weeks. _"

"Oh..." Jackson pauses awkwardly. "Thanks."

"Are you okay?" the girl asks. "You seem tired."

Jackson slips into his act with all the ease of a man maybe twice his age and five times his experience. "Yeah," he says casually. "Spent too much time out in the water. See you there sometime?"

"Nah," she says, smiling. "Unless you're drowning or something."

The girl, he finds out, is a lifeguard on another stretch of the beach. He can't remember her name, though—it slips through his fingers like seawater, like sand.

The sun blazes red and orange in the sky and then sinks into the sea like a stone. The night is dark and heavy and humid but a breeze rolls off the waves, floating through the open doors and windows of the beach house. Laughter fills the rooms and the surrounding beach, bonfire blazing in the sand and lights strung all across the porch. The sight is new but it is not unfamiliar. It feels reminiscent, as if Jackson has never been here but has been somewhere awfully close.

He plays a round of beer pong, helps a bunch of guys throw someone into the water, laughing. He sees two people kissing on the back porch in the shadows, their hair wet. He turns and does not look back. He does not think they want to be seen.

Jackson doesn't know what, _ who, _ he is searching for until he sees it.

There's a man drifting through the crowd, wearing black jeans and a thin white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He doesn't turn his head, and Jackson almost doesn't recognize him without the suit jacket.

"Seunghyun," Jackson whispers, and his voice shouldn't carry further than the space in front of his lips but Seungyhun turns and for one second, one moment, their eyes meet.

Seunghyun turns his back on him and moves through the crowd, away from him.

Jackson almost runs after him, can't quite stop himself from running after him, and when he finally thinks he is close enough to catch him he isn't. Seunghyun is already out the back door and striding across the beach, a shadow on the sand.

"Wait!" Jackson yells, running after him. He notices Seunghyun's fine leather shoes sink into the sand, and almost laughs at how unprepared he seems.

Seunghyun turns. "Jackson."

It's civil, the way he says his name. It's civil and maddening, because they both know each other, at least in a way that should make them familiar. Jackson is sorry, doesn’t want to drive him away because he is the only one he can remember. 

He doesn't know what to say.

"You look different without the suit," Jackson says. It's the only thing his mind can supply.

The corner of Seunghyun's mouth quirks up in a wry smile. "Is that all you have to say?"

"I'm gathering my thoughts, give me a moment," Jackson replies lightly. He's a little out of breath from running across the beach. There is laughter in the distance, the sound of rushing waves.

Seunghyun smiles and his grin is bright in the night. The sea breeze ruffles his hair, the slightly open collar of his shirt.

Jackson gathers his thoughts.

"How did you find me?" Jackson asks.

"How could I not?" His tight-lipped smile is driving Jackson insane. "You're like a beacon."

"What the hell does that mean?"

Seunghyun shrugs. He looks away.

"Please," Jackson says, and he hates the plea in his voice. "I just want to know. That's all I've ever wanted: to know why this is happening to me. You can’t just show up everywhere and expect me not to wonder."

"Someone has to be the catalyst," Seunghyun says softly. "Someone has to drive the story forward."

"You're talking in riddles," Jackson says, stepping forward. The salty air whips away his thoughts.

"Riddles?" Seunghyun says, and now he is fully facing Jackson, his gaze unavoidable and unmistakably lost. "_ You _ are the riddle."

"I'm tired," Jackson says, gritting his teeth. "Because every time I wake up I'm somewhere I have never been, surrounded by people I don't know, and apparently throwing a party. Every. Single. Time."

Waves crash against the shore. There is a hand-shaped bruise on Seunghyun’s wrist.

“I don’t know who I am,” he says, voice raw. “I don’t know where I am, where I come from, where I will be tomorrow. I’m lost, Seunghyun, and you’re the only person that I’m able to remember. You’re the only one that _ knows _.”

Laughter on the beach. The salt. The sea. And Seunghyun, face unmoving and carved from stone.

“They love you,” Seunghyun says softly. “They know you, even if you don’t know them.”

Jackson frowns and watches Seunghyun turn to the sea. He looks like a man copied and pasted into the scenery, his jeans and shirt and fancy loafers not quite right for a beachgoer. He looks like a man out of time.

“They know your name.” He looks at the waves, then his feet. “They greet you like a friend.” 

He looks at the sand, then at Jackson. “They know you, Jackson. I will never be anything but a face in the background.”

Seunghyun is not a man who cries, Jackson can tell. He can see Seunghyun’s loneliness in the tightening of his lips, in the way his eyes narrow as he looks away. He can see it in the proud hunch of his shoulders, too straight and stiff.

Seunghyun is not a man who cries but he is still a man who feels, and in this moment maybe Jackson can understand.

"You're like me," Jackson says. "Drifting."

Seunghyun smiles at that, wryly and without humor. "Go to sleep, Jackson. The party ends soon."

"No," Jackson says, more to himself than to Seunghyun. "Wait."

Seunghyun waits.

Jackson wants to tell him to stay, that maybe this time when he wakes up they will be somewhere together, both on the same page in the same book, understanding. He doesn't want Seunghyun to leave. He doesn't want him to go.

But they both know they cannot stay. The party is ending.

“Goodnight,” Jackson whispers.

…

"What's your favorite place you've been?" Seunghyun asks. They are in an underground tunnel filled with people decked out in glow sticks and neon, and the music pounding against the stone walls makes Jackson's teeth vibrate in his skull.

"I don't know," Jackson says. "I hosted a party on a spaceship once."

"Was it fun?" Seunghyun asks. He's leaning close so he can be heard over the loud, grinding music, and Jackson can feel his breath warm against his neck.

"I guess," Jackson replies. He has glow sticks wrapped around his wrists and neck, and his pulse beats against the plastic. "There were robots."

Seunghyun laughs at that, throwing his head back. Jackson can trace every feature of his face in the dim neon lights, the multicolored strobes that eventually slide over them and across the walls.

"Don't change," Seunghyun says, smiling.

Jackson grins back at him. "I'll try my best not to."

It feels like a promise he won't be able to keep.

…

"My roommate is late," Jackson says, standing in the cramped apartment he somehow knows is his. "He's supposed to bring pizza."

Seunghyun hums disinterestedly, stepping over several overturned couch cushions. "You live like this?"

"I guess so," Jackson replies. "Maybe it's my roommate's fault."

Seunghyun raises an eyebrow.

The roommate in question arrives 15 minutes later with pizza and an awestruck expression that suggests he has seen something that has changed his life in some way. He’s out of breath from running, and Jackson gets the feeling that he has seen something important. Something beautiful.

Seunghyn nods politely to Jackson’s roommate, and then turns towards the door.

“Wait,” Jackson calls out as his roommate leaves the room with the pizza. “You’re not going to stay?”

“I can’t,” he replies. “Can’t you feel it? Our usefulness here is over.”

_ Our usefulness. Us. Together. _

_ I guess tonight isn't really a party, _ Jackson supposes. _ Just a plot point. _

He closes his eyes.

…

“Why would anyone project an Andy Warhol documentary on the wall during a party?” Jackson says tiredly as he sits on a battered couch. 

Seunghun shrugs and takes a sip from the heavy glass in his hand. “Aesthetics, probably. But technically, this was your decision.”

“I would never do something so weird,” Jackson says. He looks at the projection. “It’s kind of interesting, though.”

Seunghyun smirks. “Of course you would say that.”

“Do you ever feel that time has gaps?” Jackson asks suddenly. He stares at the shaky film on the wall.

“It does have gaps.” Seunghyun sits next to him. “Time only exists when you remember it. Everything else is just filler. Imagination.”

Jackson stares at the wall and realizes that the documentary has ended and has restarted. He feels like he is drifting, floating away from his own body. The night is big and dark outside the windows and time is bigger, and fate is bigger, and Jackson is so, so small.

“I’m glad you’re here with me,” he says, but he means much, much more.

“I’m glad to be here.”

A moment becomes more than a moment when Jackson leans forward, letting Seunghyun place a hand on the back of his neck. Seunghyun kisses him once, mouth tasting like mint and paper and smoke. 

Jackson closes his eyes and everything fades into silence.

…

“Agents of fate are important,” Seunghun says quietly. They are on a yacht together, the deck filled with reckless rich kids drunk on the alcohol they’ve bought with their parents’ money. Usually Jackson would be with them, laughing and doing what he usually does, but Seunghyun is here. Seunghyun is here, and he has something to say.

“Agents of fate?”

“Haven’t you realized?” Seunghyun says, hands hanging over the edge of the boat’s railing as he leans on it. “That’s what you are.”

“That doesn’t make sense, what’s an “agent of fate’—”

“You are a catalyst for people to fall in love,” Seunghyun says. “Some agents of fate start wars or revolutions. Some of them spur invention and creation. Some inspire emotion. Everywhere something important happens there is an agent of fate that guides the moment, which exists so things can happen as they should.”

“What does throwing parties have to with any of that?” Jackson asks, and he wants to scream into the salty air.

“Haven’t you noticed? People meet at your parties. They _ realize.” _

Jackson stares out at the neverending sea, at the currents that bob the ship up and down, and he realizes that the ocean is so deep that he will never see the bottom. He can look down forever but he will never see the darkest depths.

He feels this way about Seunghyun, too.

“And what do you do?” he asks Senghyun, the words blistering. “What purpose do _ you _ serve?”

Silence. And then, so softly that Jackson almost doesn’t hear it, Seunghyun speaks.

“I’m here to watch over you,” he says. “You’re important.”

“You couldn't tell me this before,” Jackson says bitterly, but the words lack venom. “Why?”

“You’re not supposed to know,” Seunghyun says. “I’m just an observer unless something goes wrong.” The wind whips his words away. “We aren’t supposed to meet like this. I’m not allowed to speak to you.”

“I love you,” Jackson says. “Am I allowed to do that?”

Seunghyun gives him a tightlipped smile. “No.”

“Are you going to stop me?”

Another smile. “No,” Seunghyun says, grabbing Jackson's wrist and then sliding an arm around his waist. “I won’t.”

…

This feels like a frat party, and three minutes in Jackson knows he is correct. There are college students dressed in jeans and sweatpants knocking back shots of vodka in the kitchen, and loud bass music thrumming through the walls. Jackson walks through the crowd and someone claps him on the back, smiling and laughing. He turns to see a friendly face and a wry smile, and when he wraps his arms around Seunghyun he feels like he has finally come home.

**Author's Note:**

> [live fast die young party hard](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/06Cxt9nGvDJOWvx4fhHenY)   
[twt](https://twitter.com/nastaeyong)   
[cc](https://curiouscat.me/nastaeyong)


End file.
